Return to Winter

A couple of vehicle repairs, neither of which fit in with my current US and German forces, but they could indicate a possible future project set in the Ardennes in 1944. The Panzer IV is an Italeri model, which I got assembled, but the side skirts were badly damaged, so they were replaced with a PSC version that I picked up in a bag of bits some years ago. The Chaffee is the old matchbox kit passed to me by Bob and needed a couple of new road wheels (a donation from a scrap modern Airfix Leopard) and a new gun barrel.

French Men at Arms

I was sorting through my remaining medievals when I realised that the surplus Miniart Italian knights could simply be repainted as French. I remembered the example block of Men at Arms passed around by the Perry's during their talk on the Agincourt diorama. They had created a block of about ten figures and then cast it in resin so they could be quickly painted and used to fill out the broad mass of French Men at Arms. So I used a similar to approach to paint four units.


Here's one of my pictures of the Agincourt diorama, I can just about see the blocks, but only because I've seen one up close

A slight diversion - trees

I started these while my vision was suffering as they were a quick job, not needing too much accuracy. They are some small trees picked up from Pete D at Gauntlet, plus a few remaining Italeri telegraph poles I found.

Infamy Infamy

A quite quiet day at the Roman Senate.


Then the immortal line "Infamy, Infamy, they all got it in for me"

Figures from the Strelets Roman Senate pack. I had debated the basing but decided against a granite/marble effect and stuck to a basic warm climate basing so they could be used more flexibly.

Frontier Light Horse

Beginning to get back into painting despite my wife finding lots of odd jobs. Latest is the Hat Frontier Light Horse, I've given them all a khaki jacket to give some apperance of uniformity.

I'm rather unhappy with this set as Hat changed to mix of foot and mounted figures from their previous sets so instead of being able to represent a single unit mounted or dismounted, this now has enough figures for two mounted units and half a unit of dismounted, I'll have to add some Boers when needed.

Numidian Cavalry

A quick update with my latest painting the Zvezda Numidian cavalry based up as three small units of light cavalry and a command stand


As my eye recovers, I encountered a new problem as the hard drive on my Laptop has failed and I'm having to use a Windows 10 machine (horrible)

Hedges - second and final batch

Having seen an eye specialist, my blurred vision should only last a few weeks and already my sight has recovered enough to paint. But with the weather deteriorating I've spent time finishing the hedges , which were still on my work table in the cold garage.


These will provide variety to the plain hedges I produced previously and the half size sections will allow me to make different configurations


The gates are laser-cut MDF and I bought a batch off lazzylozlasercutter on ebay

On the workbench - November 2016

All behind at the end of the month because I forgot about the house painting then I had eye problems. But at least the rest of my hedges are underway.

It seems the Plastic Soldier Kickstarter in 20mm will be shipping at the end of the month, so this will be my last chance to clear the decks before the end of the year. Currently planned are:

• Numidian cavalry (underway)
• Second batch of hedges (already started)
• Frontier light horse (started last month)
• Medieval commanders, plus odd fillers for some units/armies
• Strelets Roman Senate and Transport
• Strelets Norman Train

T-40 Russian light tanks

Had a struggle over the last few days as I've had blurred vision in one eye, However this pair of T-40 tanks by S-Model have been completed. The kit is for the T-40S, which is the non amphibious version, but hardly any of these were built. Luckily the kit contains the propeller and rudder required to make the T-40 which did see combat.

It's a quick and easy model to assemble, especially if you ignore the small PE parts.